The unique ensemble that created the acclaimed The Company I Keep is back in 2012 with a new trilogy of works.

The Second Echo Ensemble is Tasmania’s first and only integrated ensemble of young performers with and without disabilities. Managed in a Partnership between the Tasmanian Theatre Company and COSMOS Recreational Services the ensemble began in 2006 and to date has made and presented five original works.

Branch Book Bench is the sixth new work for the ensemble and like previous performances the work uses gestural movement and voice to explore emotional and energetic territory that is both universal and personal.  As a trilogy of short performances with each cast with a small number of the entire ensemble these works are more intimate than the group’s previous offerings.

Branch is a moving and heartfelt exploration of the connections in our lives.

Have you ever branched out and tried something different only to find yourself in an unknown place?

When we feel strongly about a cause often others become involved, bringing strangers and friends together. What connections do you protect and nurture? What are you prepared to branch out for?

Book director Guy Hooper has bonded with performer Will Webster over a love of Shakespeare. Joined by actor Bryony Geeves they have used physical comedy, playing around with books in different ways, and puppetry to create a piece in which two people discover the play Hamlet in a pile of books and end up creating a five minute version of the play enacted with paper props.

“it has been fantastic to see a great comic relationship develop between the two of them.  They are both such enthusiastic and inventive performers that most of the time rehearsals are more like play than work; and that is how it should be when you are making theatre.” Director Guy Hooper

Bench is an excerpt adapted from the masterwork “To Have and To Hold” choreographed by Dan Shapiro & Joanie Smith which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.  It has been staged and performed all over the world by professional, student and community companies including Alvin Ailey. Bench is a dance about the potency and poignancy of memory and requires the cast to invest whole-heartedly in the rigorous and demanding physicality of the choreography, the precise focus and intention of every moment, and the emotional commitment to the joys of love and the despair of loss.

“ Danny & Joanie have an amazing ability to tap into the commonalities we share as human beings — the structure of family, our relationships, our struggles — and bring them to the stage in ways that are intense, provocative and accessible.” Director Kelly Drummond Cawthon

Branch Book Bench plays at the Peacock Theatre from three performances only Tuesday May 15 at 8pm and Wednesday May 16 at 1pm and 8pm.

BUY TICKETS ONLINE HERE (TTC FRIEND members please sign in for discounted tickets)

or at the venue 45 mins before each show